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Evan Domek
Stefanie Trout
English 250 PJ
February 7th, 2013
Assignment 3 Analysis
For assignment 3, we were required to pick one essay out of the seven options we
were given and I chose to read “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto. Some of the other
essays looked interesting as well, but this was the first one on the list of options so I chose
it. After reading the essay, we needed to write a five to six paragraph rhetorical analysis of
the text. Thankfully, I found plenty to discuss in “Against School” so this assignment turned
out to be much less difficult than I first thought. I feel my thesis worked well, I had more
strengths in this paper than any other assignment before, and I also had less issues writing
the essay.
Developing the thesis for my essay was not too difficult. I found Gatto’s essay to be
quite interesting so I did not have to try very hard to stay focused on what he discussed. I
was also able to connect with his essay right away because he talked about kids being
bored in school and I definitely know the feeling. I found plenty of strategies that Gatto
used throughout his essay in order to get his message across and I was able to immediately
incorporate these strategies into my thesis. If I was not as interested in the essay, I will
admit that it would have been much more difficult to come up with a thesis. My thesis was
not the only aspect that I believe was strong in my essay.
Unlike the last assignment, I feel like I have more strengths than weaknesses. This
may be due to this assignment being our third so I have had more practice with my writing.
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I believe I did a good job of analyzing Gatto’s essay beyond just a simple analysis of the
different appeals that he used. I went into great detail of the different appeals he used, but
I also discussed how successful his different strategies were. I felt like he relied mostly on
ethical appeal to get people to believe in his arguments so I made sure to include plenty of
examples for when he gave credit to his sources and to himself. I did my best to write my
essay according to the excellent column of the rubric so I could try to receive the best grade
possible. As well as paying attention to the rubric, I also tried to give greater consideration
to the organization of my essay because in the comments of our last assignment, you said I
needed to improve my organization. Even though I feel my essay had more strengths than
my last assignment, I still faced some problems.
I had my final draft done around eight o’clock the night before it was due and I
thought it was looking pretty good. Then, around ten o’clock, I got the email giving us the
basic outline that our assignment should follow. Mine was pretty close to the outline, but I
was unaware to the fact we were required to include a short summary in our essay. Since it
was late, I did my best to change my essay to fit the proper outline it was supposed to
follow, but I am sure I messed it up trying to change it in such a short period of time.
Thankfully, this was the major problem I faced and I believe the solution l came up with to
fix it worked.
When I noticed the areas of my essay that needed to change to fit the outline, I
immediately removed some portions of my essay. I did very little summarizing throughout
my essay before the email, but I took out some parts of the essay and put them into a
summary paragraph. I think my changes worked out well, but I will find out when the
grades are given. I also woke up early on Wednesday to make sure I read through my essay
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one more time in order to fix it up. I found some areas that needed to be fixed so I removed
my assignment from the drop box and changed it. I got it resubmitted about fifteen
minutes before it was due and I sure hope all the changes I made were worth it.
Overall I feel like my essay turned out well. I hope the changes I made last second
are going to positively affect my grade. I never wait tell the last possible minute to do
anything so I hope I did not screw it up. I have confidence in my writing and I feel like it
turned out well.